As you know, launches are the name of the game over here — and helping EVERY single client we have, every single blog reader we have, and every single email list subscriber we know is paramount to what we do.

No gatekeeping over here. Ever. 😉 So to make sure you always know how to rock your next launch with Facebook ads, we’re kicking off a new case study series where we share a success story from one our six-and seven-figure entrepreneur clients over here at System Envy.

Introducing… How our pre-launch strategy supported a $560K launch!

Who: System Envy client with a course (at a $297 value), an established warm audience, and a long break from live launching — she hadn’t run this course live in 2 years (!)

What: Though we’d been running evergreen course content for years, this particular launch was a live webinar-style launch. In the months leading up to the launch, we focused on engagement and on long-term planning. We strategically ran freebie ads and relevant engagement ads — so her audience was warm and ready to go.

How: We approached this live webinar-style launch with the following ads in strategy:

• live webinar
• webinar reminder
• webinar replay
• cart open
• cart close 
• last-day ads

The numbers: 

• The estimated launch revenue from our ad strategy was +$560,000 (which was more than 50% of the total revenue generated)
  • Note: this is just what we could track inside Ads Manager. The overall launch actually resulted in around $1M of revenue
• Estimated return on ad spend: over 300%
• Around $5/purchase return (on a $297 offer)
• Doubled the number of purchases since the last launch, even with a 33% increase in the price of the course

The takeaways:

This was a hugely successful launch, and — as all launches do — it taught us a lot! Here are our two biggest takeaways from this launch. These are what we felt moved the needle by and large:

• Warm audiences are SO, so important (they are almost always our top performer by far). How do we get massive pools of warm audiences? People tend to think of ads only for launches but the truth is, pre-launch is just as important for launch strategy as the actual launch. Don’t skip it. Run engagement ads, boost your pre-launch reels (be strategic, don’t boost your cat…boost the reels with content that is aligned with your live launch subject), host a live on Facebook or Instagram, ask questions in your posts and ads. These are great ways to build large, warm audiences quickly ahead of a live launch. 
• Video content was a huge hit! We really focused on ads talking to the camera, specifically with our client holding the phone in front of themselves and speaking directly to their audience! This is usually a huge hit during the launch, and we saw that confirmed during this one
  • Fun fact: We provide ‘video wishlists’ to clients and these types of videos are always on there for a launch. We’ve shared that list on the blog!
  • Pro tip: Utilize live launches as a way to regularly freshen up your evergreen campaigns for your course. When you’re filming your live launch ads, film an extra version or 3 taking care to not speak dates or words to identify it as a live launch. Then, once your live launch is over, you already have video ads ready for your evergreen campaigns. 

And, there you have it — a dive into one of our client launches. While you obviously want to be highly strategic, there’s a LOT to be said for a warm audience and engaging content. 

Stay tuned — we love to share client success stories!